Monday, November 07, 2016

Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story

(2015)***

Cameraman, Milo, and his reporter, Sarah, and their boss, Charlie, are assigned to cover a story on house foreclosures. They are perplexed when they stumble across a house that still looks lived in. They soon conclude that the family has vanished without a trace. Milo breaks into a locked closet in the basement and discovers a box of videotapes. Upon viewing the tapes it becomes clear that the family was being stalked by a faceless man in a suit seen in the far background of their videos. Soon Milo, Sarah, and Charlie are “marked” and they realize that the shadowy man is now stalking them. The man can only be seen through a camera lens.

Bearing similarities to “It Follows”, “Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story” (terrible title) combines the found footage and the unstoppable “monster” genres with fairly satisfying results. The shadowy man stalking them, “The Operator” is clearly based on the “Slenderman” mythos and his sudden appearances are effectively creepy. Similar to the Paranormal Activity series, with every slow pan around the room you are expecting to be jolted. With such a cookie cutter genre to play with, “Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story”, is a slight cut above the others.